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ZAKZAK: Part 3: The Staff's Final Throes

The final installment of ZAKZAK'S three-part series takes a at how the staff held up as Nova crumbled around them. Here's a translation of the article.

The staff's final throes: We've had enough

The voices of the staff echoed in the quiet of the office.

"What?! The person in charge of paying the rent and the staff all quit without taking care of the rent for the instructors' apartments?"

"People in other sections are quitting, too, and work is piling up. Nova is finished if this keeps up."

There were signs of a collapse before, but the downward spiral accelerated after September 27, the third time pay for instructors was delayed.

When management began handing in their resignations, it was huge mental blow to the staff who were already anxious to begin with. Sahashi's right hand man was long gone and the head of the auditors was in the hospital recuperating from an illness. A member of the board, he entered the hospital under the pretext of undergoing some tests and never returned to the company.

After Nova collapsed, the people responsible for the company scrambled to escape the company.

Continuing to operate under these conditions was a huge source of stress for the remaining staff, particularly money problems concerning the non-payment of rents. It easily took 30 minutes just to repeatedly apologize to concerned parties and deflect their anger.

One staff member expressed her anger at management for quitting and leaving their work unfinished: "We were left in the lurch!"

In October, with schools closing and more instructors striking, the angry phone calls from businesses partners and schools didn't let up.

The few remaining staff did what they could, but there were simply not enough people to go around. Businesses were calling Nova because the staff who oversaw them had quit. Those left at Nova answered the phone by apologizing because other staff would send email containing a simple "I'm leaving," never to return to work or hand off what they had been doing.

The people who stayed with Nova until the very end were not the management but the staff working without pay. In their words, "We did it out of a sense of responsibility, but we couldn't make a living without any money. We had had enough."

At a nearby department store getting a head start on its Christmas sales, you could hear the sound of jingle bells.

Recent events

October 26: Nova files for bankruptcy protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law.

October 30: The luxurious office of Nova president Nozomu Sahashi is shown to public.

November 5: Sahashi files a petition with the Osaka District Court rebutting the allegations made by Nova's trustees about the office and the way he ran the company.

November 6: The trustees announce that they plan to find a sponsor by November 8. The Osaka Labour Bureau considered filing charges against Sahashi for violating the Labour Standards Law for not paying his employees.

November 7: Trustees announce the liquidation of Nova and that its business will be handed over to G. Communication.

Original article

会社の盾となった社員「もう限界」…NOVA崩壊(下)

「えっ、外国人講師の社宅の家賃を支払わないまま、担当部署の責任者と社員が一斉に退社!?」 「他の部署の社員も続々辞めていて、業務が滞り始めている。このままじゃNOVAは崩壊するよ!?」

社員同士で話す声が、閑散とした社内に響き渡った。

以前から崩壊の兆しはあったというが、それが急加速したのは、9月27日の3度目の給料遅配直後からだった。

特に、幹部連中が続々と辞表を提出し始めたことが、ただでさえ不安定な社員の心理状態に大きな影を落とした。猿橋望前社長の右腕だったCEOアシスタントはとっくに逃げ出し、監査室長は体が弱いという理由から長期療養中。役員である監査役に至っては、検査入院名目でそのまま出社しなくなってしまった。

NOVAが崩壊した後に責任を問われるであろう関係者たちが、我先に逃げ出したのだ。

このような状態での業務の引き継ぎは、残った社員に多大なストレスを引き起こす。特に家賃滞納など、金銭に関するトラブルの場合は最悪だ。相手にひたすら謝り続け、怒りを解くだけで30分は軽くかかる。

「よくもまあ、こんな状態になるまでほっておいたものだ!」同じNOVAの社員とはいえ、中途半端な状態でさっさと辞めていった責任者らに強い怒りを感じる。

10月に入り、スクールの閉鎖や講師のストが拡大するにしたがって、契約している企業や学校からの苦情の電話が鳴り止まなくなった。

残った少数の社員で対応するが、絶対的なマンパワーが不足している。辞めた社員がサポートしていた企業などの研修担当者に呼びつけられることも。「退社します」と先方にメールを送っただけで、引き継ぎもなく辞めるので、会話はまず謝罪することから始まるのである。

NOVAを最後まで支えたのは、決して経営幹部たちではない。給料が支払われなくても、会社の盾となってがんばってきた社員たちだ。彼らは言う。「責任感だけでここまでやってきました。でもお金がないので生活が成り立たない。もう限界です…」。

会社近くのデパートでは、早くも始まったクリスマスセールのジングルベルが聞こえていた。

【最近のNOVAをめぐる動き】

10月26日 大阪地裁に会社更生法適用申請

10月30日 猿橋望前社長の豪華社長室が報道陣に公開

11月5日 猿橋前社長が、豪華社長室などに関して反論をまとめた上申書を大阪地裁に提出

11月6日 保全管理人がスポンサー企業を8日までに決定する方針を発表。大阪労働局が従業員らへの賃金未払い問題で、猿橋前社長らを労働基準法違反容疑で書類送検する方針を固めた

11月7日 NOVAの主要事業をジー・コミュニケーショングループに営業譲渡し、法人としての清算を発表

Japan: 

Comments

THE NOVA CONNECTION.
The Men in Black, "Yakuza" were/are still involved with the "OLD" and "New Company".
THINK!

I am yet to see a concrete link between Nova and the `Boys`.

I have read lots of posts on forums abot it, yet I am to see proof.

the underworld. On the surface it's clean.
Better not to know, or you will see concrete around your feet. WHY DO YOU THINK S.M DOESN'T SHOW UP? IN HIDING!
I'll let you on in a secret; In exchange for immediate funds/cash, you give ten "blank" pieces of paper with your thumb-print, name and chop on them plus stocks in the same amount as collateral. Pay back or not, they've got your BALLS!
What has happened, is enough proof!
"THINK!"

In the age of the computer, you can be anonymous and rule the world from a four and a half mat tatami room.
Shit! You can be anywhere! The Virgin Islands, on a yacht, with a T-1 satellite link!

I have said for months that there is no way on God's green earth that the yakuza have not somehow been involved with NOVA. They have infiltrated the highest offices in Japanese government and numerous companies, and NOVA is no different.

Companies such as Sagawa (you've seen their delivery trucks all over Tokyo) have had close ties with the yakuza. At one point, they were lending money to them in the form of stock shares (just like Sahashi claims to have done with another company). Mitsubishi admitted to paying sokaiya protection money for years to the Sumiyoshi-kai, who pretty much control greater Tokyo. Lockheed-Martin, the biggest aircraft manufacturer in the world, ended up paying the yakuza for inside information to secure contracts with major Japanese airlines. It's almost as if they are an integral part to Japanese business. If they got to these companies, they definitely got to NOVA. It was a cash cow waiting to be milked.

The only connection is this Nishida gentleman who was arrested a couple months ago for stock manipulation, and even that "connection" is pure conjecture. "Ramping", as they called it in the 80's, is when stock prices were manipulated so that they would rapidly increase so that they could be quickly purchased and sold before the bottom fell out. The stocks are then left worthless, but the money that was paid for them goes straight to the local gangs coffers. This is what Nishida was doing, but to what extent, the public hasn't been told, nor with whose stock. Remember, there were wild fluctuations in NOVA's stock prices near the end. No one really seems intent on following any kind of paper trail, or any kind of trail, to connect him to Sahashi, and since the 90's, the yakuza have become very good at keeping problems in-house.

It's my bet that Sahashi pissed someone off and that this whole fiasco was orchestrated to destroy him. I know that sounds completely paranoid, but the pattern and history are there, and it would be naive to ignore it. He's probably not even in Japan now, which would explain why he communicates through his lawyer via written statements. He's not hiding form angry employees, he's hiding from some oyabun. My guess is either he's going to be arrested, or he'll be found dead.

"The Men in Black" to turn "Green."
http://ssjj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/6/1/1.pdf

Sahashi was your landlord!

That is a really good article by Peter Hill. He wrote an excellent book on the Yakuza ("The Japanese Mafia") which was published a few years ago.

I too was not at the big Saturday meeting. I didn't find out about it until yesterday when I checked this web site. I resigned from NOVA last week because Hello Work told me it was the only way to get unemployment insurance and I'm running out of money. My question is, can I still apply for a new position with G-Education even though I've already resigned and wasn't at the meeting? I called Foreign Personnel in Tokyo and asked about it just a few minutes ago. They said I should still be eligible for a job with G-Education, but they can't really give me any other information or provide the forms that were available at Saturday's meeting. In fact, when I asked about that meeting, the guy I was talking to just said "we can't discuss any information about the meeting". He told me to contact G-Education directly, rather than talking to NOVA. Here's the web site he gave me:

http://www.ganbaru.co.jp/

I was told to call the phone number listed on that site, which is: 0120-62-0885

So I'll give it a try and let you all know what happens...

OK, I called G-Education. The person who answered the phone could speak a little English and told me that all the relevant information is on this web site:

http://www.g-com.jp/

Unfortunately, the site is all in Japanese...

They told me that lots of instructors have been calling and asking how to apply for a job with G-Education. They said they don't really know anything yet and there's no way to get access to the application forms that were passed out at the Saturday meeting. The guy I talked to said to call your AAM if you happen to know the phone number (they couldn't give me the phone number for my AAM though) and say that you are interested in G-Education. He also said to just wait for now and keep checking the NOVA web site, and eventually they will try to post something about G-Education. Apparently foreign personnel doesn't know much more than we do at this point. They're getting their information from the NOVA web site too!

Thanks Erik . Appreciate your effort.

This is the only English information on their site at this time...and it's dated Nov 6th so is only slightly helpful...
http://www.g-com.jp/pdf/071106e.pdf

That's what happened to NOVA!


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